AI and the Scrutable State: A New Account of Administrative Law Retrenchment

A recent academic article on arXiv (2602.09678) argues that since 1887, administrative law has faced a 'capability-accountability trap' where expert agencies govern complex systems but their decisions are hard for courts, Congress, and the public to oversee. The author contends that traditional responses—requiring records, reason-giving, and transparency—have preserved legality but made government less comprehensible and effective. The article offers a new interpretation of the Supreme Court's recent administrative law retrenchment, from Loper Bright through Trump v. Slaughter, as an attempt to restore accountability by reallocating authority to entities deemed comprehensible and attributable, making government 'scrutable.'